Lenovo battery not installed – Solution to Lenovo laptop error

Battery not installed is an older error that I’ve met for the first time one year ago and recently I ran into it again. I even forgot for a second what the issue was and how I’ve fixed it but shortly remembered as soon as I checked my control panel – add/remove programs and saw something strange which actually looked like a corrupted installation of Lenovo Power Management Drivers.

What does this error actually do?

Well, as you can see below, it blocks or better say refuses to provide details on the status of the battery, health check and many others if you would go for the details. It will only say: “Battery not installed” as soon as you scroll your mouse over it in the taskbar, and if you try and select it to go for the details nothing better will happen. The software installed will still confirm the fact that “the battery is not installed”.

I still lack the details to tell you why this happens and the weird thing is that there are a bunch of elements that can trigger this error, and sometimes it’s real and it addresses a hardware malfunction (like battery not correctly installed) while other times it is just addressing a software issue, which could be wrong driver or bad Power Manager version.

This is the Power Manager version I had installed when the error was still displaying:

For me, the issue was that I had the software problem and what actually happened was that I installed some incorrect version of the Power Manager plus the Power management drivers which didn’t apply to my laptop model (T430).

How did it look in control panel? Well, if you have such an issue there should be something related to Thinkpad Power Manager and/or Lenovo Power Management Driver as you can see below:

Solution:

I uninstalled both of them, while the Lenovo Power Management Driver also asked for a restart. Let him do it. Do keep in mind that you will have the software issue, meaning the wrong drivers or power manager only if you already installed something like this, any of them or you just used an image that already had the wrong drivers/software. If this isn’t the case, I would try to consider some possible hardware errors too, like the incorrect placement of the battery.

After I uninstalled both pieces of software from control panel, (Thinkpad Power Manager and Lenovo Power Management Driver) I rebooted the computer as asked and then I installed a newer version of the Thinkpad Power Manager from Lenovo website:

After you access the page, find your computer model. Follow the steps until you are pointed to the download section where you could try the latest Power Manager version. You don’t need the Power Management drivers as Power Manager includes them. I also encourage you to try the latest version of the Power Manager, it should work, but I didn’t have the time to test it again so I used the last one that worked for me, which is a bit older.

You can also find a text file which has details on each model that this Power Manager version applies too so that you don’t download if it doesn’t match: Power Manager for Windows XP

If the Power Manager asks for a reboot, let him do it and as soon as your computer rebooted it should work and you should see Battery installed. One more thing, if by any chance you used the latest version and it didn’t work after reboot, and you still see the Battery not installed error message, uninstall this version and try mine by the same steps. This is also available backwards so in case you installed mine and it didn’t work try the latest from Lenovo website.

My version was tested on multiple T430 computers, but I also found some comments on Lenovo forums which said the Power Manager didn’t work, and at the time the comments were made the version I used was the latest. This makes me believe it might not work for some of you and you should try Lenovo’s latest driver.

The version I used can be found by opening Power Manager: Start – Programs – ThinkVantage – PowerManager. In the window that opens, left click the question mark located in your upper right section. From the dropdown menu that appears after you click the question mark, select “About Power Manager”.

By the end of 2012 one of the latest and good versions of Power Manager was the one below:

Now, do not think if it worked for me, it will also work for you, but most of the problems on the web related to this error are caused by the same wrong driver so I said I should share it, maybe it helps at least some of you.

For those that for some reason the above failed you will have to recheck some basic settings to make sure it is not related to a hardware malfunction.

1. Shutdown and unplug your computer.

2. Remove the battery.

3. Make sure it is not connected to a charger and press ON/OFF button a few times to make any power leftover disappear.

4. Connect the battery and make sure it has no protection, plastic cover or whatever else that might cause it not to connect the PINs fair.

5. Connect the power charger and start the computer; test it and see if it works and it is displayed right in your Power Manager.

After these steps, it might work if it was a connection problem, but the battery can still be broken or faulty. No real way to test that unless you have another computer or battery of the same kind. If you do have such a possibility, just change batteries or computers and see if you get the same results.

If the computer is new, there are very less chances for the battery to be already broken and if so, you can return it from where you bought it in the first place and they should test and replace it, if this was the case.

What I advise you before you do that is to try again and check for anything in your control panel – add/remove programs related to Power Manager or Power Management and remove them all. Reboot your computer. Get the above driver I provided and see if it worked. If not, do the same steps one last time but try with Lenovo latest driver.

I am sure there will be a pretty decent number of those of you that can’t fix their issue with the above provided solution due to a number of factors but I am willing to help you out. Just tell me your computer name and operating system. Maybe we can fix it together.

The best of luck, to all of you: users of Lenovo.

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You should have a manager for battery to tell you that. You might find it in your bottom right corner and a symbol like a battery just double click it and you should see status of battery. In most cases when it is faulty you should see something like “replace your battery”.

In case you can’t find anything there you can also check in control panel – power options and you should have a tab for charging or battery with more details.

I have a “battery not installed issue” problem with Lenovo X201 TABLET running Windows 7 64bit. It seemed to happen all of a sudden. It is not a hardware issue, I tested the battery and tried a brand new one. I started to search and came across your solution. I also noticed that there was a power management update around the time that occurred and thought that might have caused it. I tried to restore to an earlier date but there weren’t any restore points before the power management update. So as your article suggested, I uninstalled it and reinstalled a newer power management version, then an older one but neither one worked. Other than total reinstall, which I don’t want to do, not sure of other options.

My computer model is new T430 using windows 7 OS(64bit.
It display that the battery installed is not supported by this system. I have uninstall power manager and power management driver and install new versions from Lenovo support site but still showing the same error.

I have also try other lenovo laptop batteries and still showing same error while its battery is working well when put in other lenovo laptops.

The error is different from what I presented in this article so doing anything in this article is pointless as your problem doesn’t seem to be a software one.

Where did you get the battery from ? Is it the original battery the laptop came with or is it a new one ? Is it a battery from another model ? You should know some batteries have different SPECS from laptop model to model like voltage and power that work differently for each model. You also risk damaging your laptop if you continue to use this battery, in case it has been bought from the “black market” and it is not the original or exact match.

A clean Windows installation would fix the issue but we both know that takes time, however you can still think this through as a last option. If you say this battery works in another computer and another computer’s battery doesn’t in this one somewhere along the way power mgmt driver or power manager messed it up. In most cases uninstalling both of them with a reboot after and installing latest version again will fix it.

As I can see in their guidelines if that installation fails at some point (even if according to you ASM P/N number it is made successfully), you can try to do it again by downloading and starting the install process once again. After rebooting if you face the same issue I would take a look in here to see if any of the battery reset procedures can be done in your case: http://support.lenovo.com/en_GB/downloads/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-70812#update (it all depends on what options you have in control panel – under power management).

You can also try a system restore to the date when it last worked, if you have it enabled.

One more question however, with all this being said I’m still curious, if you remove the power cable does it shut down or it still runs on battery ? This would be to know if only a software issue, case where if you remove the power cable the computer should still be alive, but not a very accurate test. 🙂

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agni
on January 24, 2014 at 5:35 pm

for ur additional information that i hv installed thinkpad power management 6version but it didnt work properly in my lenovo z410.

i hv download and install it in my z410 but i hv difficulties to find kind”lenovoo energy management” notification in taskbar or kind of shortcut (its just didnt show up). i tried to search in C:programfile(x86)/lenovo/energy management” then i clik on DPIns.exe it didnt work either. couldy help me where i can find that kind of “battery magement” shortcut ?

@bitpsychobyte : i hv problem with my new z410 (win7 64bit) , theres no “battery magement software” in the cd driver, whereas i want to keep my battey life last longer. where i could able to download it?

i cant find any device in playback and recording now, my laptop was working properly before a week,i did everything i know.on troubleshooting,it shows no hardware found for this driver,and no audio device detected.i cant install any driver because it shows no device for this driver.please help me.i am using lenovo g470 with windows7.

You could also try a system restore by using start – run – type in “rstrui.exe” without the quotes, press enter and follow steps. This should restore your computer settings (it won’t touch any files/folders) to an earlier time when your software was working. This again if we are not talking about a hardware failure and this is easy to find out if you use the SIW software I told you about or check via BIOS.

Thanks for the reply first.I tried to install conexant audio driver earlier.But the installation didn’t finish because it was showing”no device for this driver detected”.And when I hover the mouse over the muted speaker symbol,it shows no audio output device connected,and during troubleshooting I tried to install HD audio driver and it didn’t fix the problem.How could I know if it is a hardware problem?And how to check via BIOS?

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ABIN
on October 30, 2013 at 12:53 pm

I don’t have a backup point before the date of fault.So I guess it won’t help restoring my system.

Sorry for the delay in answer, but I’ve been away. If you still got the issue we can continue.
Did you install that software I told you about, Portable SIW ?
If yes, what does it say when you check for PCI devices – audio, can you send me a print screen at bitpsychobyte@yahoo.com please ?

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ABIN
on November 6, 2013 at 12:18 pm

I am still having the problem.I installed the software you told me.Some audio related stuff was there,but I am not sure what it is(I am now from my office pc).In device manager,under sound and game controllers,it shows greyed out audio devices and devices with some exclamation mark.And the device status is like “code 10 -this device could not start”.I have tried enabling,disabling,uninstalling,reinstalling etc to the audio devices in device manager and restarting several times.But so far no change to anything.Some other devices also show error code 45.I even formatted my C drive.I was using Windows 7 64 bit previously and now i am using 32 bit version after reinstalling OS,in Lenovo G 470.From my searches on the internet,I heard that it is a common error for laptop and no one have a perfect solution for that.But unlike others, I can see “plug and Play enumerator” in the system devices in DM.I can only see a few options in the bios.Is there any software that could fix this problem?my ethernet conroller was also not working properly,I can’t install the software for that also.Does that afect the audio of the device?When I took my lap to a computer shop,the technician said it is a hardware problem without even checking it properly!!So I am not anymore interested to take it to a shop as they will keep on saying it is hardware problem and I should change the sound card.Please tell me how to check it in BIOS and registry edits if necessary. I tried installing the audio drivers from the lenovo website and the one i got with the driver CD during purchase.both was unable to start because of the error”no device for this driver found”.

One of these drivers should work for your system, it just depends if it asks the driver for WAN or LAN adapter. For WAN it also depends if you have an Intel adapter for which you need “Intel Wireless WiFi Link Driver for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) – Lenovo G470 and G570” or the generic one which would work with the last mentioned driver: “Wireless Lan Driver for Windows 7”.

If you don’t have details about this to find out what to apply, download them all and try to install them one by one. You will get a message that there is “no device for this driver found”. You can check device manager for “network adapters” section, maybe you already have the LAN card installed and then this ethernet controller that is not working should be the WAN adapter so you will only have to pick from 2 options instead of the 3 I mentioned above.

The ethernet controller has nothing to do with your audio problem.

If you manage to download the network adapter driver and you will have Internet on your computer, with your approval I can try to schedule a meeting with you and I will remotely connect to your computer (your personal computer, the one you have issues with) in order to troubleshoot the left issues. It will be more efficient for both of us this way, even if it Is not a commonly used method on forums for troubleshooting. If you agree with this way, just send me an email to bitpsychobyte@yahoo.com and we can continue with scheduling a time for the remote assistance that we can both honor.

If for whatever reason that is not acceptable to you, we can try to continue with the troubleshooting like this but you will have to tell me the product ID or PN on your laptop. Not the serial number, the other code next to it to check for BIOS version and settings so I can see if I can point you to a good direction.

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abin
on November 9, 2013 at 6:47 am

I am glad you replied.I wish I could do the remote desktop stuff,but I don’t have internet connection in my laptop like i said before,i am from my office PC.I saw PCI-x audio device in the SIW software,under the labels,there were intel and cougar.Is there any automatic audio problem fixing software available?

The thing is, you need Internet for it. You have to fix first your network adapter problem, so you can go out on the Internet with it, then you could run the above mentioned software and it might fix the rest of the driver issues.

Can you tell me what is the status if your computer now ? Is the network adapter working ? Did you apply the correct driver from the links I mentioned earlier ?

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abin
on November 15, 2013 at 7:57 am

Still my adapter is not working.And one interesting thing I found is ,under my Other Devices in Device Manager, there is an unknown device with an exclamation mark and in the details of driver,it is shown “no driver for this device found”.I tried installing the audio drivers for that device by navigating manually to the driver folder,but troubleshooter didn’t find any driver.My network controller is also under Other Devices in DM.

Send me an email with a print screen of your device manager, try to expand all sections that might be of interest, like network adapters and anything about audio. I won’t mind if it is more than one print screen. Email them to me at bitpsychobyte@yahoo.com

Also please tell me the part number and model of your laptop, not the serial number part number and product ID of the laptop. They should be on the same label with serial number, just tell me everything on that label EXCEPT S/N (serial number – don’t need that). I need all of them to find more about your laptop if we are going to fix this.

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ABIN
on October 29, 2013 at 11:05 am

MY LATOP WAS WORKING PROPERLY,BUT ALL OF A SUDDEN,MY SPEAKERS STARTED MALFUNCTIONING,THE MUTE SYMBOL WAS SHOWN IN THE TASKBAR.I’VE TRIED EVERYTHING I KNOW.IT WAS SHOWING NO AUDIO DEVICE FOUND WHILE TROUBLESHOOTING.AND I CANT INSTALL ANY NEW DRIVERS BECAUSE IT SHOWS NO DEVICE FOR THIS DRIVER IS FOUND.AND I CANT SEE ANY DEVICES IN THE PLAYBACK AND RECORDING.I AM USING WINDOWS 7 IN LENOVO G470.HELP ME PLEASE.